ISSUE 351
Executive Book Summaries
The 8th Habit
From Effectiveness To Greatness
by Stephen Covey
The Author
STEPHEN COVEY is cofounder and vice chairman of FranklinCovey, a global professional services
firm. Acknowledged by Time Magazine as one of the 25 most influential Americans, Dr. Covey is
the author of seven books including The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, First Things First and
Principle-Centered Leadership. Dr. Covey holds an undergraduate degree from the University of
Utah, an MBA from Harvard and a Doctorate from Brigham Young University. He is the recipient of
a large number of awards and recently founded the Covey Leadership Center.
Main Idea
The 8th habit of highly effective people is: “Find your voice and inspire others to do likewise”. This latest habit is not an add-on to the
original seven habits, but represents another dimension of effectiveness which will enhance the performance of each of the other
seven habits.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
1. Be proactive
2. Begin with the end in mind
3. Put first things first
4. Think win/win
5. Seek first to understand... Then to be understood
6. Synergise
7. Sharpen the saw
Dependence
Independence
Interdependence
The 8th Habit – Find your voice...and inspire others to do likewise
Find your voice
1. Discover your own voice
2. Express your voice
Inspire others to find their voices
Focus
1. Expand your influence
2. Be trustworthy
3. Build trust
4. Blend other’s voices
5. Create a common vision
A. Find Your Voice
Execution
1. Align goals and systems
2. Empower others
Pages 2 – 3
To find your voice means to engage in work that genuinely taps your talents and fuels your passion. It means to do something significant
with your career – to sense an unmet need and then to fully harness all your talents and passion to meet that need. To find your voice
means to take the path to greatness rather than settling for mediocrity.
B. Inspire Others To Find Their Voices
Pages 4 – 8
Once you’ve found your own voice, the way you can continue to increase your feelings of achievement is by helping others to find
their own unique voices as well. Most likely, this will be done through an organisation of some kind because most of the world’s work
is done by organisations rather than by individuals. To inspire others means to recognise, respect and create meaningful opportunities
for others to express their voices. The word inspire is derived from the Latin inspirare which literally means to breath life into another.
This is exactly what you do when you encourage and positively influence others within your own organisation to find their voices.
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© 2005 Copyright Sound Ideas
A. Find your voice
1 Discover your own voice
To find your voice means to engage in work that genuinely taps
your talents and fuels your passion. It means to do something
significant with your career – to sense an unmet need and then
to fully harness all your talents and passion to meet that need. To
find your voice means to take the path to greatness rather than
settling for mediocrity.
The human voice is unique and significant because it lies at the
intersection of your own unique:
1. Talents – your natural gifts and strengths.
2. Passion – those things that excite and enthuse you.
3. Needs – the necessity that you earn a living by providing what
people are willing to pay for.
4. Conscience – that still, small internal voice or compass which
confirms what is right and when you’re doing it.
Needs
One of the most frustrating things for the majority of people
is the fact they rarely have the opportunity to realise a life of
greatness and contribution. Instead, people spend the majority
of their careers operating at a much lower level. They are aware
of the tremendous challenges and problems which exist, but
most people have not developed the internal power nor the
moral authority to become a force in solving those problems.
To address this challenge, you need to find your own voice.
When this happens, a fire will light inside you which will fuel
tremendous drive and commitment. To be able to actually find
your voice, however, you first need to understand a simple way
of thinking about life.
A whole person has four basic components:
1. A physical body.
2. A mind capable of independent thought and analysis.
3. A heart which can feel emotion.
4. A spirit – your soul or philosophical center.
Each of these components has a corresponding basic need or
motivation:
1. Physical body – “To live”.
2. Mind – “To learn”.
3. Heart – “To love”.
4. Spirit – “To leave a legacy”.
The highest manifestations of these capacities are:
1. Physical body – Discipline
2. Mind – Vision
3. Heart – Passion
4. Spirit – Conscience
As you begin to understand, respect and ultimately balance
these highest manifestations for yourself, synergy is created.
You become energised as you begin to understand what you’re
actually capable of achieving. When you engage in work that
taps your talents and fuels your passions, and which fills the
need your conscience has drawn you towards, you find your
voice. This is often described as “finding your true calling in life”
or “unlocking your soul’s code”.
Components
Conscience
External
Talents
Passion
The challenge of life is to discover your own quite unique voice,
which will lie in the potential that was bequeathed to you at
birth. When you discover that, no longer will you feel like a
victim of your circumstances. Instead, you’ll be in a position of
power to move forward with confidence into the future.
“All children are born geniuses; 9,999 out of every 10,000 are swiftly,
inadvertently degeniusized by grownups.”
– Buckminster Fuller
“I have found that by making four simple assumptions in our lives
we can immediately begin leading a more balanced, integrated,
powerful life. They are simple – one for each part of our nature – but
I promise you that if you do them consistently, you will find a new
wellspring of strength and integrity to draw on when you need it
most.
1. For the body – assume you’ve had a heart attack; now live
accordingly.
2. For the mind – assume the half-life of your profession is two
years; now prepare accordingly.
3. For the heart – assume everything you say about another, they
can overhear; now speak accordingly.
4. For the spirit – assume you have a one-on-one visit with your
Creator every quarter; now live accordingly.”
– Stephen Covey
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is
striking at the root.”
– Henry David Thoreau
Basic Needs
Key Attributes
Dimensions
Body
“To Live”
Discipline
Need
Mind
“To Learn”
Vision
Talent
Heart
“To Love”
Passion
Passion
Spirit
“To Leave a Legacy”
Conscience
Conscience
Whole Person
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The 8th Habit – Page 2
2
short, people who live by their conscience will have inner
integrity and peace of mind.
Express your voice
All of history’s greatest achievers have only one thing in common.
Through long-term effort and intensive inner struggle, they have
greatly expanded their talents, passions, needs and conscience.
By doing this, they have enhanced the power of their voices,
thereby increasing their influence and reach.
If you apply these four dimensions to any role that you carry out
in life, you can and will find your voice in that role. The key is to
be able to answer four questions in the affirmative in each of the
primary roles of your life:
1.
Needs
Conscience
Your Voice
Talents
“When you can give yourself to work that brings together a need, your
talent, and your passion, power will be unlocked.”
– Stephen Covey
Passion
Similarly, in order to express your voice more decisively and
distinctively, you need to work at building your capacities in
each of these four dimensions:
1.
What need do I sense in my family, in my community or in the
organisation I work for?
2. What talent do I possess which, if properly disciplined and
applied, would meet that specific need?
3. Does the opportunity to meet that need tap into the things
I feel most passionate about?
4. Does my conscience allow me to take action in this way and
become intensively involved?
Vision – being able to see a future state in your mind’s eye
before it materialises in the flesh. Vision is simply applied
imagination, as most things are created mentally before being
brought into physical reality. Great leaders see the untapped
potential in their people, and inspire them to move towards
realising that potential. In comparable fashion, to express
your voice more powerfully, you need to cultivate the habit
of looking for the good in people and affirming that. As you
communicate to the people around you, your belief in them
and their future, you’ll bring out the best in them.
2. Discipline – which is effectively willpower embodied.
Discipline is needed to actually make things happen. To be
disciplined means to accept reality, become totally immersed
in the facts and then move forward from there. Without
exception, successful people are disciplined enough to do
what has to be done rather than what would be expedient or
easy to do. Or put another way, discipline in practical terms
usually means forgoing immediate pleasure in anticipation
of a far greater future payoff.
3. Passion – the unrelenting drive which comes from the heart.
People with passion are motivational to be with because they
believe the best way to predict the future is to take part in
shaping it. Influential people are passionate about what they
do because they have found their purpose and role in the
world, their mission in life. When people are passionate about
what they do, they don’t require any supervision to get things
done. Their fire and motivation comes from within rather than
being imposed from without.
4. Conscience – your moral sense of what’s right and what’s
wrong. Every religion and every culture of the world has
an accepted set of values which dictates a sense of fairness
and the concepts of honesty, respect and contribution.
Conscience encourages people to sacrifice something good
in order to obtain something even better. Ego may suggest
that the end justifies the means, but conscience will tell us
a worthy end can never be accomplished with an unworthy
means. Conscience transforms passion into compassion and
allows us to build relationships of trust with other people. In
“Conscience often provides the why, vision identifies what you’re
trying to accomplish, discipline represents how you’re going to
accomplish it, and passion represents the strength of feelings behind
the why, the what and the how.”
– Stephen Covey
“Wisdom denotes the pursuing of the best ends by the best means.”
– Frances Hutcheson
“The best leaders operate in four dimensions: vision, reality, ethics
and courage. These are the four intelligences, the four forms of
perceiving, the languages for communicating that are required to
achieve meaningful, sustained results. The visionary leader thinks
big, thinks new, thinks ahead – and most important, is in touch with
the deep structure of human consciousness and creative potential.
You must gain control over the patterns that govern your mind: your
world view, your beliefs about what you deserve and about what’s
possible. That’s the zone of fundamental change, strength, and
energy – and the true meaning of courage.”
– Peter Koestenbaum
“From now on, the key is knowledge. The world is not becoming
labor intensive, nor materials intensive, nor energy intensive, but
knowledge intensive.”
– Peter Drucker
“Most ailing organisations have developed a functional blindness to
their own defects. They are not suffering because they cannot resolve
their problems but because they cannot see their problems.”
– John Gardiner
“I am no longer a young man filled with energy and vitality. I’m given
to meditation and prayer. I would enjoy sitting in a rocker, listening
to soft music, and contemplating the things of the universe. But such
activity offers no challenge and makes no contribution. I wish to be
up and doing. I wish to face each day with resolution and purpose. I
wish to use every waking hour to give encouragement, to bless those
whose burdens are heavy, to build faith and the strength of testimony.
It is the presence of wonderful people which stimulates the adrenaline.
It is the look of love in their eyes which gives me energy.”
– Gordon Hinckley, age ninety-two
“There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.”
– Victor Hugo
The 8th Habit – Page 3
2. Inspire others to find their voices
Once you’ve found your own voice, the way you can continue
to increase your feelings of achievement is by helping others
to find their own unique voices as well. Most likely, this will
be done through an organisation of some kind because most
of the world’s work is done by organisations rather than by
individuals. To inspire others means to recognise, respect and
create meaningful opportunities for others to express their
voices. The word inspire is derived from the Latin inspirare
which literally means to breath life into another. This is exactly
what you do when you encourage and positively influence others
within your own organisation to actually find their voices.
Whenever you express your own voice using the four
dimensions – vision, discipline, passion and conscience – you are
displaying personal leadership. For an organisation to do
something comparable and express its voice, its leaders must
fill four equivalent roles:
Modelling
Your
Organisation’s
Voice
Focus
Modelling
Your
Organisation’s
Voice
Pathfinding
Focus embodies both the modeling and pathfinding roles in
helping organisations find their voice and achieve greatness.
There are five things you can do to build and enhance your
focus:
To Build Focus
1. Expand your influence
Regardless of whether you’re the boss or not, you can influence
your organisation to do better in the future. In practical terms,
this requires that you take the initiative and act as a trim-tab for
your organisation. A trim-tab is a very small rudder on a boat or
plane that turns the bigger rudder, which then turns the entire
ship. History is full of influential people who exerted loads of
influence even though they had no formal authority. This is the
spirit of what you need to do within your own organisation.
In practical terms, being a trim-tab means:
•
You strive for personal excellence – and encourage all those
within your circle of influence to do likewise.
•
You always do what’s right – rather than waiting for explicit
permission to be given. Instead of being assigned, you take
personal responsibility and use your initiative to solve any
problems and move forward.
•
You avoid complaining, criticising or being negative – and
view these actions as shallow attempts to shift the blame
from your shoulders to someone else.
•
2. Pathfinding – the organisation must jointly develop a viable
strategy which will allow it to move from where it is now to
where it wants to be in the future. Pathfinding creates order
without demanding it.
You empathise with your boss – and try to anticipate the
pressures he or she is operating under. Whenever you’re
given an assignment, you pause and consider the “why” this
matter is important. Then take the initiative and provide
more than was asked of you. This will make a big impression.
•
You have to be constant – and encourage your peers to stick
to sound principles and good business practices rather than
twisting and turning with every social wind that blows.
3. Aligning – the organisation has to put in place structures,
processes and systems which will engender the behavior
which is desired and keep everyone on course. Aligning
produces a form of institutionalised moral authority to
act. Alignment nourishes both vision and empowerment
without enshrining them as imperatives.
As you do these things consistently well, your boss and others
in formal positions of power will have increasing trust in your
ability to perform. That, in turn, will lead to more opportunities
for you to take the initiative. Over time, you will be able to
substantially build focus within your organisation by creatively
trim-tabbing your way through.
Empowering
Pathfinding
Aligning
1. Modeling – the organisation’s leaders have to set a good
example themselves. They must create and buy into
a corporate culture which is aligned with the organisation’s
vision, customers and future directions. Modeling inspires
trust without expecting it.
4. Empowering – focusing the organisation’s talent on the results
needed rather than the methods used and then getting out
of people’s way. Empowering is all about execution. In an
empowered organisation, leaders give help and direction
only when requested. Empowerment unleashes human
potential without externally motivating it.
“In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst
into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should
all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.”
– Albert Schweitzer
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“We must become the change we seek in the world.”
– Gandhi
“Leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential
so clearly that they come to see it in themselves.”
– Stephen Covey
“Give the world the best you have and you may get hurt. Give the
world your best anyway. Few of us can do great things, but all of us
can do small things with great love.”
– Mother Teresa
The 8th Habit – Page 4
To Build Focus
2. Be trustworthy
“Just as trust is the key to all relationships, so also is trust the glue
of organisations. It is the cement that holds the bricks together.
I have also learned that trust is the fruit of the trustworthiness of
both people and organisations. Trust comes from three sources: the
personal, the institutional, and one person consciously choosing to
give it to another – an act that leads me to feel your belief that I can
add value. You give me trust and I return it. Trust is a verb AND
a noun. When it’s both a verb and a noun, it’s something shared and
reciprocated between people. That is the essence of how a person
becomes the leader of their boss. They merit trust by giving it.”
– Stephen Covey
Over the long haul, who we actually are is far more important
than who we appear to be. Trustworthiness derives from the
wisdom found in a person at the intersection of their character
and competence. In practical terms, to be trustworthy, you must
have:
• Personal integrity – you live a principle-centered life rather
than doing whatever is expedient.
• Maturity – the ability to deal with tough issues
compassionately and on the strength of your own private
victory over self.
• An abundance mentality – where you can be genuinely happy
for the success of others rather than viewing everything in
terms of a winner-takes-all competition.
• Technical competence – the skills and knowledge needed to
accomplish the task at hand.
• Conceptual knowledge – the ability to see the bigger picture and
therefore to think strategically.
• Awareness – that all life is interdependent and connected to
some degree or another.
A trustworthy organisation will keep its promises. The people within
it do what they say they will do consistently. They will be able to make
promises and keep them because their own lives are in order. They
will live universal principles of personal effectiveness, such as those
embodied in programs like The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
They will also have a personal planning system in place, which will
enhance their productivity and ensure what they do is aligned with
what matters most.
“Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an
individual and of nations alike.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
“The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity.
Without it, no real success is possible no matter whether it is on a section
gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.”
– Dwight David Eisenhower
“One man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he
is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one
indivisible whole.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
“There is no way you can make significant progress in your
relationships with other people if your own life is a mess or if you’re
basically untrustworthy. That’s why, in the last analysis, to improve
any relationship, you must start with yourself; you must improve
yourself.”
– Stephen Covey
To Build Focus
3. Build trust
In order to inspire others to find their voices, you have to build
strong relationships with them first. Effective and sustainable
relationships are always built on a foundation of trust. This is
significant because the bulk of the world’s work actually gets
done through relationships between various organisations and
between people within the same corporate entity. Thus, the
higher the level of trust that exists, the more you can and will
get done.
Trust is like an emotional bank account. Whenever you do
something that builds trust, you make a deposit. If you
do anything that destroys trust, you automatically make
a withdrawal from this account. What’s left is the equity you can
invest in building a strong relationship.
There are ten ways you can increase the amount of trust in your
emotional bank account:
1. You can create mutual understanding – by seeking first to
understand the other person’s point of view before worrying
about your own agenda.
2. You can generate an environment of integrity – by always
following through and keeping your promises, big and small.
3. You can practice openness – by being honest about what
you need rather than manipulative.
4. You can be kind and courteous – showing you avoid
stereotyping and let the facts speak for themselves.
5. You can always think win/win or no deal – demonstrating
definitively that you respect the other party in the relationship
and have your own competitiveness under control.
6. You can always clarify your expectations clearly – so the other
party will have a genuine opportunity to add value rather
than going off on a tangent.
7. You can be loyal, even to those who are absent – showing that
you have integrity and commitment rather than superficial
intent.
8. You can be prepared to accept the apologies of others
– demonstrating that your ego is in check and you’re realistic
about the possibility of short-term setbacks.
9. You can give and receive genuine feedback – so that everyone
in the relationship (especially yourself) has an opportunity to
become aware of their blind spots.
10. You can be forgiving – willing to forget, let mistakes go
and move on rather than endlessly mulling over an earlier
misstep.
“It is a greater compliment to be trusted than to be loved.”
– George MacDonald
“No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself,
and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as
to which may be true.”
– Nathaniel Hawthorne
“I know this now. Every man gives his life to what he believes. Every
woman gives her life for what she believes. Sometimes people believe
in little or nothing, and so they give their lives to little or nothing.”
– Joan of Arc
The 8th Habit – Page 5
To Build Focus
4. Blend other’s voices
The best way to resolve conflicts within any organisation is to
search for a third alternative which creates synergy as it addresses
differences. When organisations do this, they create conditions
where the organisation’s voice can be more clearly projected.
In practical terms, the search for a workable third alternative which
is “our” solution rather than this party or that party’s solution
requires a whole new mind-set. There must be a willingness to
consider creative solutions, empathy for the viewpoint of the
other person and ongoing two-way communication before this
even becomes feasible.
So how do you develop a third alternative which will blend
together people’s voices rather than allowing conflict to rule
supreme? There are two key questions you should ask when
trying to develop a workable third alternative:
1. “Would you be willing to search for another alternative
solution that is better than what either you have proposed or
what we have proposed thus far?”
2. “Would you agree to one simple ground rule while we discuss
this: No one can make his or her point until they have restated
the other person’s previous point to his or her satisfaction?”
If the other party will agree to both these suggestions, then you
have a chance to work together to develop a synergistic plan
which will work for both of you. Again, this is a win/win approach
rather than a zero sum option where the only way one party can
win is if the other party loses.
Note that synergy is never a compromise. Instead, synergy is
created whenever a solution is developed which both parties
acknowledge is even better than what they were originally
suggesting. When properly crafted, the third alternative should
be so enticing both parties become enthusiastic about it.
“Leaders do not avoid, repress, or deny conflict, but rather see it as
an opportunity.”
– Warren Bennis
“The Third Alternative isn’t my way, it isn’t your way – it’s our way.
It’s not a compromise halfway between your way and my way; it’s
better than a compromise. A third alternative is what the Buddhists
call the middle way – a higher middle position that is better than
either of the other two ways, like the tip of a triangle. The Third
Alternative is a better alternative than any that have been proposed.
It is a product of sheer creative effort. It emerges from the overlapping
vulnerabilities of two or more people – from their openness, their
willingness to really listen, their desire to search. You simply don’t
know where it’s going to end up. All you know is that it’s going to
end up better than where it is now. The Third Alternative usually
starts with oneself. But it often takes the force of circumstances like
some person opposing you before it really begins to take place within
you.”
– Stephen Covey
“Service is the rent we pay for living in this world of ours.”
– Nathan Eldon Tanner
“I know not what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only
ones among you who will be truly happy are those who have sought
and found out how to serve.”
– Albert Schweitzer
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To Build Focus
5. Create a common vision
Every organisation grapples with four basic realities:
1. The realities of the marketplace.
2. The organisation’s core competencies.
3. Stakeholder wants and needs.
4. The organisation’s value system and sense of purpose.
Before everyone can focus effectively, these four realities
must be clarified, integrated and harmonised. Getting
everyone in the organisation on the same page is a necessary
prerequisite before the organisation’s voice can be projected
with any degree of success.
So how do you achieve shared visions and values across an
entire organisation?
WHY
WHAT
HOW
Mission
Vision
Values
CORE
Passionate Focus
and Execution
Line-of- Sight
Strategy
The key is to mix together two elements to create a third. The two
elements to be mixed are:
1. Your organisation’s mission, vision and values – which
effectively describe “Why” you are in business.
2. Your line-of-sight strategy – which is your overall strategic
plan brought down to a daily level and complimented by a
line of accountability. In effect, this articulates “How” business
will get done.
When organisations and individuals know what their key goals
are and how they will be accountable for acting to achieve those
goals, they can then focus on “What” needs to be done much
more intensively and passionately. When this happens, the
organisation will find its collective voice and a powerful culture
will emerge which will facilitate the achievement of those
specified goals.
“The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision;
you can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.”
– Theodore Hesburgh, president, Notre Dame
“Leadership is creating an environment in which people want to
be part of the organisation and not just work for the organisation.
Leadership creates an environment that makes people want to,
rather than have to, do. It is a business imperative to create that
environment. I must give purpose, not just work and function. As
a businessperson, I feel obligated to create an environment where
people feel part of something, feel fulfilled and have purpose. It is
purpose – it is value in their lives – that leads people to truly give
of their minds. Then you are getting the maximum from them, are
giving the maximum to the person. Anything less is irresponsible
to the organisation and demands more handling by the individual.
When you see people as only fulfilling a function, you’re treating
them like a thing, like the chair you’re sitting on. I don’t think we
as humans can assume the right to do that. We found the greatest
satisfaction for an employee is to feel part of something and to feel
trusted to make decisions.”
– Horst Schulze, former CEO, Ritz-Carlton
The 8th Habit – Page 6
Empowering
To Execute Better
Your
Organisation’s
Voice
Empowerment is a natural flow-on result. When an organisation
models trustworthy behavior, it inspires trust implicitly.
Pathfinding creates order without actually demanding
it. Aligning nourishes both vision and empowerment.
Empowerment is the logical result of personal and organisational
trustworthiness. When people are empowered, they find their
voice by doing the things they feel passionate about. Their
individual voices and the voice of their organisations blend
together.
Aligning
Execution
Execution embodies the empowering and aligning roles in
helping organisations find their voice and achieve greatness.
Two things you can do to enhance your ability to execute are:
To Execute Better
2. Empower others
1. Align goals and systems
Organisations need to design and utilise systems and structures
that will reinforce rather than act at cross purposes to core values
and highest strategic priorities. Systems always override all the
rhetoric and best intentions of managers. This is an area where
actions most definitely speak louder than words.
To create systems that are aligned with your organisation’s
goals:
Develop information systems which match your
organisation’s value systems – if you value long term results,
measure both short term and long term results.
Create a compensation system that holds supreme and
reinforces the organisation’s values – by making cooperation
and synergy key elements of the compensation program.
Reward cooperative effort even-handedly rather than
focusing exclusively on individual effort.
Have an abundance mentality – and make it feasible for
everyone to win rewards when they accomplish the desired
results and not just the elite top performers.
Stay flexible with your business systems and processes –
so you can respond to changing circumstances intelligently
rather than being locked into something unworkable.
Look constantly at what the world-class performers in your
industry are doing – and learn from their example. Pick up
what works for them and see whether a similar idea will be of
benefit to your organisation.
Set up a great feedback system – which will allow ideas to
circulate around the organisation without impediment or
alteration. Get into the habit of asking people “What do you
think we should do?” You’ll be amazed by the quality of the
information they will provide.
Achieve a good balance between getting results today and
developing the capacity to generate noteworthy results
in the future – so your organisation can be effective. In
particular, avoid actions that are expedient today but which
will have the effect of holding your entire organisation’s future
hostage. Measure progress on your most important goals
– so everyone have clear, accurate, and timely updates on
what’s actually happening. The more actionable intelligence
you can provide for your front-line people, the better.
“Aligning structures and systems with values and strategy is one of
the toughest of all leadership and management challenges simply
because structures and systems represent the past – tradition,
expectations and assumptions.”
– Stephen Covey
When people feel empowered, they need little or no supervision.
Empowered employees use their own initiative to leverage and
optimise the use of the organisation’s assets – a type of directed
autonomy. In this kind of workplace, the role of the manager
shifts from being a controller to that of an enabler. Managers
collaborate with their people to remove barriers and then
become an ongoing source of help and support.
The key empowering tools for organisations are:
1. Win-win agreements between employees and the
organisation – open-ended agreements in which the
organisation’s goals are specified but the means by which
those goals are achieved are left entirely to the employee’s
discretion. Of necessity these agreements will be completely
flexible and able to be changed to respond to the changing
circumstances of the marketplace.
2. Self evaluation and performance appraisal – in which the
employee evaluates their own performance on the basis
of the 360-degree feedback received from sources around
them. For empowered people, self-evaluation will always be
tougher than anyone else’s evaluation because the employee
knows where their true weaknesses lie.
3. Servant leaders – who see their role as creating the conditions
of empowerment and then getting out of their people’s
way and providing help only when needed. A good servant
leader is far more interested in getting the job done than in
having his or her ego stroked. The leader should effectively
run alongside employees asking:
•
•
•
•
“How’s it going?”
“What have you learned that’s new?”
“What are you now trying to accomplish?”
“How can I help you achieve your goals?”
“It’s when the spirit of servant leadership takes hold in a team,
and between a manager or team and an associate, that trust fully
blossoms. Again, it’s the trust that one person or team consciously
chooses to give to another – an act that leads me to feel your belief
that I can add value. You give me trust and I return it. Trust (the verb)
comes from the potential trustworthiness of the one receiving the
trust and the clear trustworthiness of the one giving the trust.”
– Stephen Covey
“The best way to inspire people to a superior performance is to
convince them by everything you do and by your everyday attitude
that you are wholeheartedly supporting them.”
– Harold Greneen, former chairman, ITT
“Duty, love and meaning are the highest sources of motivation.”
– Stephen Covey
“Leadership is today’s hottest topic.”
The 8th Habit – Page 7
– Stephen Covey
In summary, the 8th Habit is all about finding your voice as an
individual, as a team and as an organisation.
Find your voice... and
inspire others to do likewise
Find your voice
Inspire others to find their voices
Focus
Execution
There are four disciplines which can help close the gap between
focus and execution for any organisation:
1. Always focus on the one thing that is wildly important.
People are naturally wired to be able to do only one thing
at a time to a standard of excellence. Therefore, have just a
few goals which are of the greatest strategic importance and
which will provide you with maximum leverage.
To decide your organisation’s top two or three “wildly
important” goals:
Use an importance screen
Ask: Which goals, if not achieved, would render all other
goals to be of little or no consequence?
Use a stakeholder screen
Ask: Which goals are the most important for your
stakeholders?
Use a strategic screen
Ask: What is the most consequential thing that can be done
to advance your strategy?
2. Create a compelling scoreboard everyone will want to use.
People play differently whenever they know a score is being
kept. With this in mind, it’s vital that you create a scoreboard
which is highly visible and which will reflect how you’re
doing. Your scoreboard needs to be highly visible and must
reflect progress towards your wildly important goals. It must
be visible, dynamic and accessible. It also must be updated
daily to reflect the impact of current events.
Your scoreboard may be in the form of a bar graph, a trend line,
a pie chart, a Gantt chart or it might look like a thermometer
or speedometer. For example, a scoreboard for a services
company might look like this:
Goal
3. Translate lofty goals into very specific actions.
There’s always a vast difference between lofty goals and
what’s happening at the front line. The stated strategy is
what leaders talk about. The real strategy is what people do
every day. Close the gap by explaining exactly what everyone
is supposed to do about the organisation’s goals.
Usually, this will take some creativity. You’ll have to identify
the new and better behaviors needed to achieve your goals
and then translate those intentions into specific weekly and
daily tasks. This is necessary, however, if you want the people
at the front lines to be sufficiently empowered.
4. Hold each other accountable for results all the time.
People need to meet together frequently – monthly, weekly
or daily – to account for progress on goals. These sessions
should then help the organisation to refocus on what’s wildly
important.
To make these accountability sessions work, keep them brief.
Focus on three key issues only:
A quick report on the vital few issues at hand.
A quick discussion on any viable new alternatives which
have come to mind.
A short give-and-take discussion where managers focus
on clearing the path forward and removing obstacles for
the people in the organisation.
The key to institutionalising a culture of execution is to regularly
measure and track how well the organisation is doing. Some
people develop a collective measure of execution which is
analogous to an IQ (intelligence quotient). This new measure
– xQ (execution quotient) – may be quantified by grassroots
information gathering at regular intervals. If the organisation is
getting better at executing, its xQ will rise.
Once an organisation becomes effective using the 8th Habit,
it can then use its voice to serve others. As this happens,
organisations will take the lead in solving some of society’s most
pressing problems and needs. This will enhance the sustainability
of the organisation and move society as a whole into an era of
wisdom that has never before been feasible. In this environment,
organisations will no longer be focused on “What’s in it for me?”
Rather, the key question to be answered will become, “What can
we contribute as an organisation?”
“I believe that the rendering of useful service is the common duty of
mankind and that only in the purifying fire of sacrifice is the dross of
selfishness consumed and the greatness of the human soul set free.”
– John Rockefeller, Jr.
“The surest way to reveal one’s character is not through adversity but
by giving them power.”
– Abraham Lincoln
To save customers $50 million by year-end
$50 million
Measure
Customers dollars saved
40
Current
$40 million
30
Target
$50 million
20
Deadline
End of fiscal year
10
www.soundideas.com.au
“The inspiration of a noble cause involving human interests wide and
far, enables men to do things they did not dream themselves capable of
before, and which they are not capable of alone. The consciousness of
belonging, vitally, to something beyond individuality; of being part
of a personality that reached where we know not where, in space and
time, greatens the heart to the limit of the soul’s ideal, and builds out
the supreme of the character.”
– General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
The 8th Habit – Page 8
© 2005 Copyright Sound Ideas